Bring the spreadsheet: moving a training register into software without retyping it
The reason training records stay in a forty-tab spreadsheet isn't love of spreadsheets — it's the dread of moving years of history by hand. Bulk import is the whole answer, so it's worth knowing what a clean one needs.
The forty-tab problem
The compliance spreadsheet grows one pragmatic decision at a time: a tab per course, a tab per client, a colour code only one person understands. It works until it doesn't — an expiry slips through, a certificate has to be reissued from memory, an auditor asks who amended a record and when, and the spreadsheet has no answer.
What a clean import needs
The checklist
- A ready-made CSV template, so the columns are right the first time.
- The core fields per record: recipient, company, trainer, course category, issue date, expiry date.
- Course categories with default expiry rules, so renewals compute themselves from the issue date.
- Companies and trainers managed as records, not free-typed text that drifts into five spellings.
What you get the moment the import lands
The register becomes searchable and filterable in seconds. The expiry dashboard starts watching every certificate on rolling 30/60/90-day windows, renewal reminders go to the companies that need to rebook, and every record can carry a branded PDF certificate with its own serial and QR code. The full register exports back out to CSV any time — no lock-in on the way in or the way out.
It scales past the point spreadsheets break
Sentinel manages 9,000+ certificates in production — real records, real audits, one tamper-evident log behind all of it. As the site puts it: one number, no invented logos, no fake testimonials — just the system doing its job.